June 17, 2013

Hola Familia y Amigos,

Well, first things first: Happy Fathers Day yesterday Dad. Man, do I love you. I will always remember the amazing memories that I have with you of camping, hunting, and many other great moments. I am so thankful for the example that you have always been to me. An example of humility and love that I will always remember and that one day I hope I can obtain. I thank you for all those lessons you would teach me after arguing with my sweet Mother. I remember always being sent to my room after getting mad at my Mom because I was stubborn and every time I remember sitting in my room and after about 15 minutes I would hear my Dad's big footsteps come down the stairs and Dad would enter my room, sit down next to me and teach me things that, as I look back, have changed me forever. In those little lectures with love Dad taught me eternal principles that I will never forget. One being that you never fight with your mom because she is always right (that's an eternal truth I will never forget) and many more. One that Dad taught me many times is that other people or outside influences do not affect us. People don't make us mad, we choose to be mad. This is a principle that has changed my life and my mission for sure. Here in the mission there are outside influences that are always trying to make us get frustrated, disanimated, or lazy, but the outside influence is never in the end the thing that affects us. We choose whether we get frustrated, we choose if we get disanimated, we choose if we get lazy. Outside influences do not choose for us. We will always have our agency. So why not choose good. Why not just choose to be happy, to say come what may and love it. I know that if we choose well how we react to outside influences it will make all the difference in the amount of success we have in life. Thanks Dad for teaching me such an important principle. It has changed my life. I love you Pops.

It's so great to hear from all of you and I am sure glad that my long lost sis Lacee wrote me. It's been so long since I have seen you sis. I am so excited to just give you a big hug when I see you. It has been 3 years pretty much!! Way too long to not see you sis. Well, I am glad to hear that all the celebrations went well with Blake's B-day and Fathers day. It sounds like everything is going great up there. Sounds like an awesome super activity that they had. Missionary work is the best and preparing for it is just as good. I am so glad to hear that Lacee is loving her job and that all is going well. I sure love my FAM!!! I can't believe that everyone is getting married up!! Cousins, friends and pretty much anyone else you can think of haha. You need to tell them to wait for me so I can be there haha. That's so cool that Brady and Andie are getting married. She is way awesome!! Brady has done well haha. I am sure that Brandon has done just as well, but I don't know her so I can't say haha.

Alright now, for a little bit on what is happening down here. It is getting really cold!!! There is snow on the ground. I will have to send a pic next week of the snow. I feel like it's Christmas but there it is summer ha. So crazy huh? It is really getting cold but we stay warm because we put on a lot of clothes. We are working hard and trying our very best to find new people to teach. We have not found a whole ton yet, but we are going to continue working hard and doing our best and I know the Lord will do the rest. Everything here in the zone is settled down and we are just putting the shoulder to the wheel. The recent converts here are doing great. I sure love the fam of Gustavo, they are trying so hard to share the Gospel with others now. Gustavo told us a story about how his boss was having a hard time with her family and stuff and he started to talk to her about it and she was so suprised that he was "MORMON" that she was like interrogating him haha. He got so excited to share what has come to bless his life so much that he pretty much just spit out all that he has learned in the past 2 months in like a half hour and she was just blown away with info haha. He is so awesome, I sure do love them.

Well fam I better go. I love you all so much and I know with all my heart that this is the Lord's work. We are members of His church. He lives and guides it by prophets. We have the great privilege to know this wonderful truth and I want to help others to come to know it as well. How great a work in which we are engaged. There is no better. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Brown

PS Mom, you need to ask Jord and Rick what they are up to and tell them to write me and update me on what's going on. I love those guys.